Ranger GM Glen Sather last night refuted published reports that he had made a contract offer Monday to free agent goaltender Byron Dafoe.

“There has been no offer to Dafoe and none is imminent,” said Sather, who told The Post he had spoken to Bryant McBride, Dafoe’s agent, more than once in the last 72 hours. “I’m not saying that it’s out of the question or that it might be something we would consider at some point, but we’re not near that point, yet.

“How could we be when we really don’t know much of anything yet about Mike?” Sather said before last night’s Rangers-Mighty Ducks match at the Garden.

Sather, of course, was referring to the medical condition of Mike Richter, sidelined for an “indefinite” period with symptoms arising from the concussion he sustained two weeks ago last night.

While Richter is not expected to return for, at the very least, another three-to-four weeks, he has told confidants that he has every intention of resuming his career as soon as he is medically cleared to do so by Dr. Karen Johnston, the Montreal-based physician who examined the goaltender late last week.

One source told The Post that McBride called Sather Monday to tell the GM he had received an offer from the Thrashers. The source said that Sather told McBride not to reject an Atlanta bid in expectation of receiving one from the Rangers.

It is unclear whether the Thrashers, who have been in steady contact with McBride since early in the season, actually had presented the Group III goaltender with a firm offer.

The Post also has been told that Dafoe would be willing to accept a one-year deal from the Rangers, but his asking price remains at approximately $5 million – presumably to be pro-rated for the year.

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Bryan Trottier, who missed the Rangers’ victories last week in San Jose and Calgary while serving a two-game NHL suspension, was unable to make last night’s game after having received aggressive treatment Monday for lower back pain that has debilitated the coach for the last week.

Trottier, who is suffering from a condition known as stenosis – a narrowing of the spinal column – as well as from disc problems, received cortisone injections Monday from team physician Dr. Andrew Feldman.

He had been expected to be behind the bench last night even after missing the morning skate, but Trottier, who has not gone on the ice for the last 10 days, could not make it. The coach was in so much pain and discomfort that he was forced to stand on the Rangers’ last four charter flights on last week’s road trip.

The Rangers, by the way, have had two previous situations in which they’ve been forced to make changes behind the bench due to health-related coach’s issues. An inner-ear problem limited Tom Webster to 16 games during the 1986-87 season in which assistants Wayne Cashman and Ed Giacomin ran the bench until GM Phil Esposito ultimately took command.

In 1968-69, Boomer Geoffrion was given a leave of absence midway through the season with severe stomach problems before he was eventually replaced by GM Emile Francis, who had been running the bench on an interim basis.

Trottier, 44, has been suffering from intermittent lower back pain since the age of 19. It’s believed that newly developed disc problems have exacerbated the problem.